Band:	Wolvhammer
Album:	The Monuments Of Ash & Bone
Style:	Blackened sludge metal
Release date:	May 2018

01. Eternal Rotting Misery
02. Call Me Death
03. Law Of The Rope
04. Bathed In Moonblood And Wolflight
05. The Failure King
06. Dead Rat Rotting Raven
07. Solace Eclipsed

With the 2010s nearing their close, the burgeoning and relatively new blackened sludge metal style has already expanded into a considerable diversity of approaches among its practitioners. Some are vile and bludgeoning, others more restrained and even a tad melodic at points. Wolvhammer have always seemed to be the one band that sits somewhere in the middle.

At this point into their career, Washington's Wolvhammer have developed a commendable ability to merge the sludge and black metal elements of their sound into a near 50/50 formula, and 2018's The Monument Of Ash & Bone more or less follows suit from their prior material in this regard. This balancing act results in a considerably diverse listening experience, as some tracks are highly aggressive and heavier on the black metal influence ("Eternal Rotting Misery," "Law Of The Rope"), while others are more midpaced, groovy, and all around "sludgier" ("Bathed In Moonblood & Wolflight," "Dead Rat, Rotting Raven"). Further still, Wolvhammer also segue into more mellow, atmospheric passages here and there, featuring a more relaxed guitar approach and the presence of clean vocals, as on "Call Me Death" or the epic "Solace Eclipsed" finisher.

Yet while the range of sound that The Monuments covers is certainly impressive, there is nonetheless a feeling that it attempts to accomplish too much in too small a space, and that Wolvhammer would attain a more memorable and impactful listening experience if they chose to give more weight to one particular aspect of their multifaceted sound. The black metal, sludge, and atmospheric ingredients present here are all pretty well delivered, but the fact that they tend to be so rapidly juxtaposed with each other can make Wolvhammer's music a bit difficult to really settle into for an extended period. They seem to be a band who don't like letting their listeners sit in any one area for too long, which isn't a bad thing in itself, but in going from one delivery to the next they could afford to work a little more on their transitions.

While Wolvhammer are far from being an outright terrible band, ultimately when placed against many of their contemporaries their music doesn't quite stick as hard, perhaps because of the overly shifting nature of their sound. Blackened sludge metal seems to really be a style where the most memorable bands are either absolutely unrelenting and punishing (Primitive Man, Coffinworm) or more airy and dreamlike (Inter Arma, Harakiri For The Sky). Fusing these two approaches, as Wolvhammer attempt here, appears to be very difficult to pull off for one reason or another. In the future, their music would probably be aided either by more of a focus on one delivery over the others, or by crafting smoother transitions between the different aspects of their sound. Here's hoping they manage to refine their formula a bit, as there's definitely more good than bad going on with this album.

Not "great," but enjoyable. Go before the monuments.